Finch in the polytunnels, playing for the first time instead of tucked up in the sling.

Air drying clay and our coil pots, my first in about thirty years……

Heart sharing, and listening, being heard…

Bare feet outside, I’d forgotten.

Spring flowers and the sunshine…. and hawthorn leaves. Lily used to refuse cabbage and spinach but munch happily on wild greens every Spring.

The lengthening and brightening days start to awaken connection, feeling, sharing, crying; after the months of hibernation I always feel newly peeled in Spring, slightly raw and exposed, less grey, feeling more intensely, joy and grief in equal measure.

Doing my back in…(really) and spending a day and a half in bed with Finch. Although in severe discomfort it helped me gain perspective on my harried, goal orientated life…and remember how it is to sit…or lie still. I have felt calmer and more focussed since my time in bed and can manage to walk now and actually be in the moment of walking….rather than planning next weeks menu or the next article or painting in my head.

Having my article White Feathers published on my friend Kate’s website..do take a look.

A lovely home ed morning in bed, painting and making animal finger puppets for learning French.

Bread made with Khorosan.kamut flour….hot from the oven with dripping butter its irresistable….!

My very wonderful mother’s group which I mentioned in my previous post. We met and cried and laughed and connected in a beautiful hand built round house. Supportive and nurturing.

My first painting out in the world..in a lovely brand new online magazine…. here

My partner Hugh for bringing me breakfast in bed when I was ill..the ultimate luxury…and taking Finch away so I could eat alone….and giving me a much needed back massage..

Each day seems a breathless scuttling of doing, rushing, half doing, kicking things under the sofa just so I don’t have to deal with them in that moment, squeezing things in squeezing things out. I have developed a strange, scurrying scuffle, brought on in part by the slightly too big faded lilac slippers I wear around the house, partly by the gasping need to be beyond my next destination, five minutes ago. Too many gaping loads of laundry to process, too many loaves of bread to cook, vats of soup to produce, and tantalising sticks of charcoal waiting on the side, tubes of delicious paint luring my gaze from the latest batch of flapjack in progress.

This afternoon I drove home in the cold shivering rain from a particularly nurturing mother’s group I belong to. Our children are cared for in a creche for two hours, and and we sit in circle, in silence and in deep listening, and our tears and heartfelt connection and support are like a true balm, for us harried struggling 21st century mothers living in our isolation and overwhelm.

I felt particularly soothed and connected to the women in the group today, and usually as I drive home after my group I feel resourced to cope with another week.

But as I drove today I realised I was progressing more and more slowly, I DIDN’T WANT TO GO HOME.

I was dreading walking into mess and disorder, jobs shouting at me from every corner…Me Me Me, and poor little Finch dragged around trying to half complete them all, never ending. Stuff, detritus, things to sort, things to clean, things to make. I wanted none of it. I wanted still, peace, calm, silence solitude.

And then I saw them. Maybe for ten seconds, on the river, a glimpse between to houses. In the rain against the unappealing mud brown of the river Dart in flood.

Two swans.

Nothing special, just two swans, stretching their necks and doing their thing in the rain, in the cold, in the mud. And I wanted to be there, with them, heck I even wanted to be them.

Simple calm beautiful wild and free.

I felt as if I was in chains.

But who has the key to the padlock?

I could have got out of the car and walked through the mud and rain and sat with them, the wind beating in my ears like a wild thing playing its mournful song.

But I had three children in the car and I didn’t. I came home and got a bit frustrated, tried to paint. Got cross with everyone. Tried to remember the swans. Forgot them.

But now, late at night I remember them.

Remember their grace and simplicity.
How they must feel, down there on the mud, not thinking, stressing and flustering around in baggy lilac slippers.

I want to be a swan.

I don’t really want to be swan, but I want to learn from them.

Learn to use my thoughts less, my head less, listen from my heart, my belly, sniff the air, sharpen my ears, soften my gaze. Sit by the waters edge with nothing to do but BE.

I think the universe is challenging this new gratitude space of mine. My first Wednesday…and one of those days which is so eye poppingly full of tiny challenges, huge challenges and enormous tests of patience.
In my regular way I could chronicle this quite entertaining catalogue of domestic tribulations (I must just mention cat vomit as the grand finale..)

BUT.

I won’t.

Instead…..
I sigh, and breathe out and thank, thank…myself first for remembering to use my skills of listening to divert and soothe a major melt down at a home education group

I am grateful……. for this space here which reminds me to practice being grateful.

……….. for the beautiful gardens around me, and the food they produce.

………..for our chickens, the girls have started their spring egg laying with a great fervour, such a treat to hold warm eggs on a frosty morning

………..for the chance to paint and create again, this time with Misty Mawn and her Full Circle online course,

……….for getting to make a handmade art journal for my course with the kids, and its also home ed.

……….For the new climbing club they attend tomorrow which they love and means I get to hang out and drink coffee with some cool mamas and discuss inspiring stuff while Finch naps.